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<title>Heartbeat by toushindai (WallofIllusion)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914405">Heartbeat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai'>toushindai (WallofIllusion)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Intermissions [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Masochism, Subspace, ft. Zagreus's thoroughly canonical pain kink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:55:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914405</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>the place where he's just his breath and the ache and sting and rhythm and a bright unquenchable ember-stone in the center of his chest.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Intermissions [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heartbeat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s lost count. He always does, somehow, the fire on his back flushing out all other thought, and Megaera’s told him she doesn’t mind. It’s a victory she claims over him without a defeat on his part. And once he loses the numbers he’s free to just sink into the rushing of his blood: the place where words stop, where thoughts dissolve, where he’s just his breath and the ache and sting and rhythm and a bright unquenchable ember-stone in the center of his chest. He shivers with each new lash, an undulating movement down his body, gasping and choking back cries. He could come like this. He has before. Up to Meg, this time, whether he’s allowed.</p><p>After some infinite time the whipping stops. Megaera’s hand squeezes the nape of his neck, just once to ground him, as disappointment and instinctual relief pulse out to his palms together. Then her nails trace the white-hot expanse of her work.</p><p>“Well done,” she breathes, smug and affectionate.</p><p>Zagreus exhales throatily. He sags, heavy in his body once more. The pain has sunk into his muscles, settled there like it intends to stay. It’s different from the rush. A thick cushion rather than a current. Not his favorite part of it all, but it <em>is</em> part of it and that makes it solid, comfortable. Megaera unties him, checks in on him in quiet tones, and he answers with a word or two as she combs her fingers through his hair.</p><p>“I’m good,” he assures her, slurring a little, and she chuckles.</p><p>“That much is obvious.”</p><p>She helps him over to the bed. Gratefully, he collapses there face down, arms limp at his sides. Each beat of his heart sends thick magma through his veins. Against the sheets, his cock is hard and throbbing. He can’t remember how he ever did without this.</p><p>Megaera sits down beside him, and air tickles his burning back as she cups her wing over his body. “You’re not in the mood for me to ride you right now, are you,” she says, lightly sardonic.</p><p>“Oh. I… could get in the mood,” he offers, although she’s right; she’s vicious when she rides him and sometimes that’s what he wants (sometimes it’s all he can imagine wanting) but now—not quite. It would be a shift.</p><p>And somehow she understood that before she even said anything. “No,” she says, and her fingertips trace his back again. “Stay where you are.”</p><p>“Mm… all right.”</p><p>So he does: stays in the drifting, centered feeling, in the fire on his skin and the ache seeped into his flesh. In the heartbeat that pushes his life through his body. He is here. He is here. He is here.</p>
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